Hispanic voters hold key to 2012 map

At a private fundraising reception in Palm Beach recently, Mitt Romney was overheard acknowledging his weakness among Hispanic voters. If it’s not turned around, he said, “It spells doom for us.”

Take a look at the electoral map, and you’ll see why.

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President Barack Obama starts the general election with a sizable electoral vote lead over Romney, looking strong in states totaling 247, while Romney has a strong edge in states totaling 191. It takes 270 to win.

And if Romney can’t narrow Obama’s considerable lead among Latino voters, key battlegrounds including Nevada, New Mexico, Colorado and Florida could be out of reach for the Republican nominee. Even reliably Republican Arizona could wind up in play, and Obama already has five campaign offices there.

“It’s about holding down the margins,” said Nathan Gonzales, deputy editor of the nonpartisan Rothenberg Political Report. “Romney doesn’t need to get a majority of Hispanics nationwide, but he has to avoid getting swamped by Obama among Hispanic voters.”

An April Pew Research Center poll found the president leading Romney among Hispanics 67 percent to 27 percent. That’s similar to the 67 percent to 31 percent margin among Hispanic voters that helped Obama handily beat John McCain four years ago.

'A lot of work needs to be done'

Romney is coming off a bruising Republican primary where, except in Florida, he has done little outreach to Hispanics.

While polls show immigration is not a top issue for Hispanic voters, the former Massachusetts governor did not help himself by positioning as the toughest candidate on illegal immigration and undocumented residents.

He called Arizona’s immigration law a national model and said he would veto a DREAM Act that provides a pathway to citizenship for children of illegal immigrants if they serve in the military or go to college. He advocates self-deportation — essentially making life so difficult for undocumented residents that they see little option except to leave the country.

“He hasn’t begun an aggressive, national campaign for Hispanics,” said Ana Navarro, a Republican strategist in Miami. “He needs to introduce himself, define himself beyond the narrow narrative coming out of the primary and, at the same time, go after Obama hard, both on immigration and economic failures.”

The Obama campaign is spending hundreds of thousands of dollars advertising on Spanish language TV stations in Colorado, Nevada and Florida.

But neither the Romney campaign nor the conservative political groups paying for pro-Romney ads has bought any time on Spanish networks.

The landscape is not necessarily as grim for Romney as it appears, however. National polls in recent months have shown widespread dissatisfaction among Hispanics with Obama’s record on immigration reform, deportations and the economy. An earlier Pew poll found nearly six in 10 Hispanic households reported someone out of work in the past year.

“Hispanics are shopping around,” said Jennifer Korn, executive director of the Hispanic Leadership Network and Hispanic outreach director for the 2004 Bush-Cheney campaign.

“We’ve got six-plus months. A lot of work needs to be done between now and then, but we’ve got a lot of opportunities,” she said. “It’s a matter of making sure to have a ground game, making sure to have Spanish-language ads and making sure to utilize surrogates well.”